Parents warned on energy drink craze

Red Bull may claim to "give you wings", but it and other energy drinks can also give school-aged children diarrhoea, hyperactivity, dizziness, nausea and an increased heart rate.

The warning from the Australian Medical Association (AMA) comes the week after several children were sent home from a western Sydney high school after suffering side-effects from consuming energy drinks.

AMA federal vice-president Dr Steve Hambleton says the impact of the drinks can be severe on children.

"They become hyperactive, you can get dizzy, it makes your heat beat quicker," he said.

"There's nausea, sometimes diarrhoea in the kids. So it has a significant effect."

Dr Hambleton says energy drinks like Red Bull, Mother and V commonly contain caffeine and guarana which can have long term effects on the health of children.

"They're energy-dense, nutrient-poor, full of sugar, full of caffeine. It's the caffeine that causes the problems. These aren't good drinks for children," he said.

"This is the sort of thing that we don't want our children drinking. They're dressed up of course as desirable, even the names contain the sales pitch."

He says there should be a move to ban advertising on energy drinks to stop children under the age of 18 drinking them.

"It's a tough thing to do, because you don't want to make these things inadvertently desirable. We've just got to reduce the promotion, look at where they're sold, and why they're sold," he said.

"If we're going to get our advertising gurus, let's get them out there selling apples and oranges as pick-me-ups for kids.

"Schools have banned these products from their tuckshops, quite rightly, some schools are now banning them on the premises, which is very good, and the AMA would support that.

"What we need to see is we need to get rid of advertising for some of these things and stop dressing them up as desirable things for children."

Dr Hambleton says children run a real risk of becoming addicted to energy drinks.

"Certainly you see children and adults who are addicted to caffeine and are drinking large quantities of these products," he said.

"Of course as soon as you stop having the product you have a headache and the best way to get rid of that is to have more product, and that's the definition of dependency.

"We're talking about young bodies with small body masses. What we're seeing is people are having no breakfast and are taking one of these as a pick-me-up on the way to school.

"If you get children hooked on these things they stay hooked on them for a long time."